The first President of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN), Ludo van Bogaert, realized the importance of WFN as a global organization in matters concerning neurology. In 1962, he proposed a regional plan for the organization. At that time, the world of neurology had 3 regional sections: the greater European, the greater American, and the greater AsianOceanian. The plan had 3 purposes: a more equitable division of labor among the WFN member societies, a greater sense of participation in the total program by the individual member societies, and a more equitable distribution of financial responsibility for the support of the WFN program. The most important consequence of the plan proved to be the idea of regional neurologic organizations.The African continent was, however, not included. In 1960, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had spoken of "the wind of change": "The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact." This speech was given to the Parliament of South Africa, on February 3, 1960, in Cape Town. The Prime Minister had spent a month in Africa visiting a number of British colonies as they were at the time. The speech signaled clearly that the Conservative-controlled British government intended to grant independence to many of these territories, which indeed happened subsequently, with most of the British possessions in Africa becoming independent nations in the 1960s. REGIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE WHOThe WHO structure is based upon political, social, economic, and other decisions still relevant in 2011. The member countries are grouped in 6 WHO regions, including the African region, the region of the Americas, the South-East Asia region, the European region, the Eastern Mediterranean region, and the Western Pacific region.REGIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE WFN WFN is among 182 different nongovernmental organizations in official relations with WHO, and has adapted a regional system that in principle is based upon the WHO structure. There are 2 main differences. The WFN AsianOceanian region comprises 2 WHO regions: Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific region. The WHO region of the Americas is in the WFN structure 2 regions. Since the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) and the Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation are both primarily English-speaking, and most remaining countries in the Americas primarily Spanish or Portuguese-speaking, geographic and linguistic considerations made 2 regions at the WFN level practical. Globally, WFN also has 6 regions.